


What they deserve

by Alasse_Irena



Category: Ancient History RPF, Punic Wars RPF
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 15:26:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5461505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alasse_Irena/pseuds/Alasse_Irena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hannibal and his brothers</p>
            </blockquote>





	What they deserve

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Anndy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anndy/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy your Yuletide, friend, and that this fulfils at least some of what you were hoping for.

Hannibal doesn’t hear all of the message - or if he doesn’t he doesn’t process it, and he certainly doesn’t remember it. He remembers  _ Hasdrubal _ and  _ defeat _ and  _ severed head _ , and then there are bright images in his head, as clear as if he saw them himself, first-hand. Hasdrubal, his general, his comrade, his younger brother, his skin grey and bloodless, his mouth open, his endlessly watchful eyes still. Hannibal swallows, feeling his throat clench, and grits his teeth to stop himself wretching.

It has been a long time since Hannibal thought of his brothers as younger brothers - not since they were children, when four years seemed like a lifetime’s advantage, and the difference between having seen eight summers and having seen ten was an unbridgeable gap, but now he thinks less of Hasdrubal the man, an adult and a warrior, and more of the boy he remembers from childhood. 

 

****

 

“I’ll race you!” called Hasdrubal, already some seven paces behind. In adulthood, he is -  _ was  _ \- compact and muscular, a fearsome opponent in a wrestling match, but he was a plump child, soft and short-legged.

Hannibal turned back for a moment, watching his younger brother’s childish gait, the puffs of dust that his sandals kicked up as he ran.

It was a matter of careful timing, mostly - Hannibal paced himself to match his smaller brother’s steps. It was important to look as though he wa trying, as though Mago would just managed through speed and strength and force of will to outpace his taller competitor. Hannibal listened to his brother breathing hard a step behind him and smiled.

There was a gnarled tree by the side of the track, an elderly olive - and both of them had run this race often enough to know by mutual custom that it was the finish line. When it was a few steps away, Hannibal slowed a little, pretending exhaustion.

“See?” said Hasdrubal, throwing himself down into the dust in the meagre shade the tree offered. “I’m just as fast as you are,” and the smug smile on his younger brother’s face felt a lot more like winning than Hannibal suspected winning would have.

 

****

 

“They hurled his head back into the camp,” Hannibal says, and for a moment he’s surprised at how steadily he speaks, and then he adds, choked and angry, “his  _ severed head _ .”

“He didn’t deserve that,” says Mago.  Hannibal steals a sideways look at his youngest brother’s face - eyes downcast, his lashes casting long shadows on his cheeks in the firelight. His voice is low, and steady, and even if the dim red glow softens the angles of his face to boyishness, his voice is the voice of an adult.

Hannibal hums something which might be agreement. He has treated the Roman officers well, for the most part - or at least, not so badly that he hurled their severed heads back into the Roman camp - but he knows better than to think of war as a gentleman’s sport. When you are the invader, then you deserve whatever weapons your enemy turns on you; you deserve whatever it takes for them to hold you back.

Hannibal tells himself these things.

It doesn’t erase the image of his brother’s lifeless eyes watching him glassy and unseeing. It certainly doesn’t make him inclined to forgive.

 

****

 

Many years later, Hannibal will recount to a foreign king the story of the blood oath he swore, and maybe when he does, he’ll embellish a few details, but the bare bones are true.

A small hand, sticky with blood.

He’s nine years old, and his father is going away to war.

“Swear it to me, child.” Hannibal still occasionally hears that voice in his dreams, deep and rich. When he does, he wakes up with tension in his jaw.

He looks up at his father, at the same dark eyes he knows are in his own face, but instead of Hannibal’s childish openness, Hamilcar’s eyes are narrowed, glittering in the firelight.

“Swear to me that you’ll never be a friend to Rome.”

 

****

 

He remembers the first battle he was in as a mess of frozen images, bright flashes in a black night. This man had Hasdrubal’s heavy dark brows; Hannibal swung at him, his blade coming down hard on the man’s shoulder. The jolt of impact travelling up his arm was startling.

War is  _ messy _ . He knew that, in theory, of course, but he still never imagined a situation where the most effective recourse would be to jam his knee, hard, into his opponent’s belly. The man folded over, dropping to his knees. Escaping in tendrils from under his helmet, he had the tight curls Hannibal knew from his own mirror.

The next one hadn’t any features Hannibal is familiar with, but his face looked so wild, so young, so frightened, that a dramatic part of Hannibal’s mind imagined the cold slide of metal between his own ribs, and he is half convinced that both of them felt it as the other man went down. He remembers his breath catching in his throat, remembers forgetting for a second how to breathe.

It turned out that winning a battle didn’t feel anything like winning at all. It only felt like surviving.

 

****

 

“Well,” says Mago. His voice is grim. Hannibal could swear that there’s a red glint in his eye that runs deeper than the fire or the reflected sunset sky. “What do we do now?”

It’s not his father’s pride that Hannibal thinks of anymore, when he reminds himself of the purpose of this war. It’s not his small hand, sun-browned and bloodstained. It’s not even Hasdrubal’s face, the eyes glassy and staring and blank, although that sparks enough anger in him to lead an army over the alps all over again.

It’s Mago, staring into the fire, eyes downcast. It’s Mago’s voice, dull and level.

Hannibal doesn’t tell him that nobody deserves a war. Instead, he says, “We’ll give the Romans what they deserve,” and in Mago’s eyes he can see the fierce glint of fire reflected back at him, a bitter light.


End file.
